With all the talk of departures it’s easy to forget Hull City ’s pre-season continues with a friendly against Bristol Rovers this evening.

Against a backdrop of upheaval, with Tom Huddlestone and Eldin Jakupovic both leaving camp to secure moves over the weekend, the Tigers began their preparations for a new campaign when beaten 2-1 by Oxford United on Saturday.

A patchy display from City saw their League One opponents run out worthy winners but a return to the Estadio da Nora tonight brings another opportunity to show some progress.

Bristol Rovers, another opponent from the third tier, provide the second of three tests on the Algarve and City’s head coach Leonid Slutsky is aiming to see progress made by his depleted squad.

“In each new match we will play better and better, absolutely,” said Slutsky, whose side round off their warm-weather training camp against Portuguese champions Benfica on Saturday.

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“In this moment we have just had two weeks of hard training sessions and we will understand each role and combination better the more we play.

“We need to analyse how we attack and how we defend together and I’m sure in the next match we will be better.”

City’s opening fixture under Slutsky’s reign did not pan out how the Russian will have wanted. Missed chances and mistakes were the Tigers undoing against Oxford but it was the lack of options available that caused Slutsky greatest concern.

As well as fielding a makeshift back four that included Max Clark at centre-half, Abel Hernandez, Markus Henriksen and Kamil Grosicki all started against the U’s less than a week after returning for pre-season training.